


What Is And What Should Never Be

by ProstheticLoVe



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Amy Brookheimer's thoughts, Amy's reaction, F/M, Meagan Brookheimer, Mentions of Dan Egan, Season 7/Series 7, Season 7X01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 05:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18359594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProstheticLoVe/pseuds/ProstheticLoVe
Summary: Amy knew the moment that she never wanted kids, so why was she hesitating about what to do next?Warning: May contain spoilers.





	What Is And What Should Never Be

**Author's Note:**

> I took a break from my longer story to write this because it was eating away at me. I was able to watch the premier while waiting at the airport, which was a bonus, but also everyone saw my many reactions to the start of season 7. 
> 
> Dan is infuriating, so I had to write something to make myself feel better. I think what I found so infuriating about the episode was Amy not sticking up for herself. She just seemed desperate and unsure of herself and Amy is NOT desperate. So this is what I created from my mass amount of feels. It's a lot shorter than what I usually write and is more of a stream of consciousness. Set during season 7. The title is from Led Zeppelin. It may contain spoilers.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!

 

**Warning: May contain spoilers!**

* * *

 

_So if you wake up with the sunrise_  
_And all your dreams are still as new_  
_And happiness is what you need so bad_  
_Girl, the answer lies with you,_  
_-What Is And What Should Never Be By Led Zeppelin_

  
When Amy was 17, her older sister got pregnant. And she knew after watching the older Brookheimer suffer and go through hell that she’d never follow in her footsteps. In fact, she fucking swore she’d never follow in her footsteps. 

Her sister had Joaquin - after struggling to decide on whether to abort him - and then a few days after the birth, the father up and left for good. Her sister had been 20 years old with half a degree still to go and a mountain of bills from the pregnancy. 

Naturally, Amy’s parents stepped in to help, but Sophie was stuck with Joaquin for the next 18 years and beyond - because let’s be honest, you’re only _legally_ responsible for a kid until 18. 

And Amy had to watch her sister struggle for years as a single parent. 

Immediately, she had known that was never going to be her.

She was destined to be more than a single mother who was linked to a deadbeat dad.

Her kid deserved more.

And she definitely wouldn’t stand for that.

Or so she thought.

Throughout her years of traveling with Selina and occasionally on her own, Amy had thought she’d never have children or wanted them. Not only did she think traveling with kids would be the worst - and because of her job, she knew she’d always be traveling - but how they behaved drove her insane. 

They were always yelling - screaming about some inane bullshit - or whining about not getting a toy or a cookie or whatever.

Then there was the cost of them and the fact that you had to continuously give them all of your attention.

She had enough on her plate without having to shell out dollars for toys that were only played with once or hear her son or daughter whine about whatever the fuck kids whined about these days. 

One particular incident really made her think about getting her tubes tied. And she thought of it every time she considered pro-creating. The instance goes like this: a mother and son screamed across the airport gate at one another. The son was no older than six and the mother was in her mid-20s. The entire gate starred as both mother and son burst into tears as they screamed about getting on the plane.

It horrified Amy to no end.

After all, she basically lived on planes, jet-setting from one end of the world to another. 

Was that supposed to be how you cared for a child?

Sure, Amy yelled a lot, but she figured being a parent required, well, more self-control and unconditional love.

That mother had no love or if she did, it was buried very deep down.

The whole instance put her off ever having children, but it was more than that. 

She just never saw herself as a mother. 

She never got that ooey-gooey ‘aw’ feeling when she saw children. Even children who she was close to, like her niece and nephews, she tried to stay away from them.

Children made her feel uncomfortable.

You couldn’t talk to them, at least not the way Amy was used to talking to people.

Even Sophie got that way, but Amy just...never found kids to be cute or entertaining. In fact, she tried to stay away from them as much as she possibly could.

If she were to be a mother, then she’d definitely be that exhausted single parent with that son in the airport who screamed and screamed.

And that would be her life.

From an early age, she knew she wasn’t meant to be a mother. Her niece and nephews didn’t necessarily like her and everytime Amy even went near Little Richard, he shrieked his head off.

As she got older though and her female clock started ticking away, she had begun to think about starting a family, but the right guy never came along. Sure, she had Buddy, but having a kid with him would mean she stayed home and cleaned the house for the rest of her life. Then there was Ed who she hadn’t even contemplated having a baby with. Of course, there had been others, but no one ever fit. 

Especially not Dan.

Never, ever Dan.

So it was just her luck that he was the one who would end up impregnating her.

If she was honest with herself, though, she was a little bit glad. 

She knew him; he was familiar.

It made her feel...comfortable with not knowing what came next.

And who knew, maybe the whole situation would...surprise her and something good would come out of it.

But then she remembered who she was dealing with, especially when he began to rub the many women he was sleeping with in her face - something he had been doing a lot recently, even before she told him. 

Something she never fully understood.

It was like he wanted to get some reaction from her.

Or maybe he was just so self-involved that he didn’t even realize what he was doing. 

Regardless, since she’d told him, he seemed to just be ignoring it. She had decided to step into the roll of the ‘chill’ girl and not pressure him too much. But it had been two months since she told him and he seemed to just think that the issue had magically disappeared. That she told him just because and she already had a plan to abort it.

He’d even said he thought she’d gotten rid of it, when her stomach was already expanding.

However, because she knew him and he was familiar, the way he was acting shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. 

She thought maybe he would...he would...well, that was a pointless thought and now she was going to be a single parent.

Especially after his spectacularly self-involved moment before as they walked to the elevator together.  
He hadn’t even brought up how much she looked like shit from not sleeping all night.

She thought she was immune to his callousness, but from the way he acted with her, well, she didn’t know how she could’ve been so fucking stupid.

But that was Dan - always making her dumb and blind and stupid and every other fucking negative bullshit adjective in the book.

In short, he made her feel shitty and she hated that he could make her feel so much when she knew she made him feel so little.

But hadn’t it always been like that? Even when she’d hated him when they first started working together. The story remained the same with him. He’d always pull the fucking rug out from underneath her without thinking about her feelings at all.

Like when she finally blurted out her true feelings and he hadn’t laughed in her face.

When the words began to bubble up to the point where she couldn’t stop them, she figured that he would just laugh at her, say some ridiculous and Dan-like bullshit, then close the door in her face to go fuck the nearest warm body.

But that’s not how it went, at least not at first.

She almost had a moment with him in their conjoined hotel rooms when she had said she liked Meagan and then he had to go be Dan and tell her he was sleeping with someone else that night just to...what? Rub it in her face? Make her feel like shit? Make her think that having a baby with him was stupid as fuck? 

She already felt like shit. 

And she really wanted this baby for some unknown reason.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t know it was stupid as fuck.

In all honesty, the most they had talked about the baby had been that night in the hotel room. He had all but avoided the topic and if she was being honest, so had she until she realized she was genuinely going to keep the kid.

She figured Dan should know that.

Even though having kids was not something she had planned, she was surprised at how much she was leaning into this situation.

Sure, her boobs hurt, she wasn’t sleeping, she felt nauseous all of the time, and she had to give up coffee and alcohol. Plus, she was gaining weight and some of her favorite clothes weren’t fitting anymore.

Not to mention the father of her child was an asshole to the highest degree.

And she’d get a bunch of shit from everyone once they found out.

Mostly about how she should’ve known better, but the thing was she wanted something more from her life other than endless nights on campaign trails and Selina screaming at her about how she was wrong or Dan informing her about what woman he was going to stick it to that night. 

Basically, there was a laundry list of reasons not to do this, but from the moment the idea of motherhood began to settle inside her mind, she realized this is what she wanted, even though she’d get no support. 

She knew she deserved more and since she’d come back from Nevada, she just felt...she felt unlike herself.

Even in Nevada she didn’t feel like herself.

She was going through the motions and she didn’t like that.

She was Amy Fucking Brookheimer. She scratched, clawed, and fought her way to the top.

When she found out she was pregnant, she felt dread, of course, because she was housing Dan’s DNA.

But that didn’t stop her from being slightly excited that she was going to be a mom, which was strange in and of itself.

It was honestly the only thing that was exciting, even though she never wanted to hear the word ‘mom’ directed at her and she should be excited about other things such as work.

But lately, there was just something lacking.

Maybe it was Selina shitting all over her every which way.

Or how useless she felt, especially when Selina threw out everything she did.

She was good at her job, she knew that, but her current situation...well, it was making her hesitate.

It could also be the fact she felt like she was running on a hamster wheel and going nowhere. Not to mention, she was getting older.

She didn’t have anything to show for it either, except a shit ton of knowledge on how to fuck a campaign up and decisions that no sane person should make. 

So having the baby, well, it kinda was perfect timing. She felt a little excited at the prospect of figuring out if the baby would have her blonde hair or Dan’s knack for pissing people off. She knew it was stupid to get excited about a baby months before she’d have it, but it was the only thing she looked forward to these days. 

As she stood in the hallway outside the elevator and replayed Dan’s words about Venmoing him about the abortion, she realized that she really was going to have to do everything by herself - not that she should’ve expected differently.  
If she didn’t go through with an abortion, then she was going to look forward to years of being ditched by Dan.

And then Selina told her it was her fault for hiring Keith Quinn, well, it put some things into perspective.

The thing was though, she had to ask herself if she really wanted her daughter to grow up thinking it was okay to be treated that way.

And if she had a son, did she want him to grow up thinking it was okay to treat women that way?

The answer was definitely not.

So why was she staying where she was? Why couldn’t she just let it all go?

She felt...desperate to cling on to something, anything that could in the slightest help her get back to her old self. 

How it used to be, how she used to be.

But she knew that the answer didn’t lie with staying with Selina.

Neither did it reward her to be optimistic about a guy that she always knew was a piece of shit.

She wasn’t set on having kids, but this was her life and there were some things she needed to change before she walked toward motherhood.

Having this baby could be what helps her finally take the steps toward a life that she was proud to call her own.

Again.

Maybe that was why she was invested in the baby already.

Maybe because it could help her feel like she was creating something positive in this fucked up world.

Oddly, it was her sister - her shitty older sister - who had been the one to help her see that going back wasn’t something that could happen. 

She had to get rid of it and move forward.

“Amy, it’s _Dan_. He’s not ever going to be who you want him to be. I think he’s showed you that already.” Sophie had said when she called her back after she had to hang up on her.

Amy rarely went to her sister, but for this, she was needed.

And for once, she made sense.

_This was Dan._

When she told him she was pregnant, what had she actually expected from him?

To step up?

It was Dan, he’d never step up.

To tell her that he loved her and wanted to build a life with her?

If that was the case, then she might as well go back to Buddy.

Did she expect him to tell her how happy he was?

She wasn’t even sure how she felt about it up until Dan had told her that they could go dutch on the abortion.

And then pushed his way into the elevator.

She had felt a sudden protectiveness that rested in her chest at the mere possibility of getting rid of the baby and then when Dan had given her his megawatt smile he thought made women go weak in the knees for him, she realized that he expected her to get an abortion.

It would make his life easier.

It would make her life easier.

He had already thought that’s what she’d done since they never discussed it after she’d told him. 

Two months ago.

But that’s not what she wanted to do.

She also realized - as she walked into another elevator because he hadn’t even waited for her - that what she had expected of him was to be a decent fucking human being and work out what to do with her, but she was being delusional if that was the case.

She really was going to have this baby by herself.

And that needed to be okay.

Resting a hand on her rounding belly, she looked down at her stomach as the elevator came to a stop on the Lobby floor.

“It’s just you and me.” she said quietly.

The doors opened and she stepped into the lobby, head held high, and a determination in her step at what she would do next. She knew that no one was going to like it, but fuck them because this was her life and she was going to do what she wanted. 

It would take some time and a lot of research to come up with a plan, but once she made up her mind, she was going to stick to it.

She had told Dan that she was fine being a single parent, but she still had her doubts. While she’d word-vomited all over him in hopes that he’d come around about how she was ready to do this on her own, she realized after talking to her sister, seeing Catherine, and reading some horror story articles online that doing this alone was going to be extremely difficult.

But if Sophie could do it, then she could too.

It would suck, but she was a strong and independent woman and fuck Dan and his over-inflated ego.

If he didn’t want anything to do with this baby and she wanted it, then that had to be okay too.

This wasn’t the story she had wanted for herself and she’d never wanted kids, but if she didn’t do this now, then she’d never get another choice. While an abortion would be easier and probably the best option, she had gotten to the point in her life where she needed something more than to be surrounded by toxic, emotionally-devoid people.

She would do this alone, no matter what and she couldn’t and wouldn’t be surprised when Dan acted like his usual shitstained self. 

As much as she wanted to hope that he’d be different, she knew better.

The baby hormones were probably making her delusional to think any different.  
  
So what was she going to do about it?

She was going to grow up and become a mother to Meagan Brookheimer. 


End file.
